Rules are Made to (at Least Sometimes) Be Broken

Today the Catholic Church celebrates the memorial of Saint Scholatica, twin sister of Saint Benedict. Scholastica followed her brother to Mounte Cassino, where she founded a religious order for women, not far from Benedict’s monastery. There, she dedicated her life to God.

I know very little about Scholastica’s life; it is the story of an incident that occurred immediately before her death that I love and that reminds us that slavish adherence to man-made rules is not necessarily required by God.

It is told that Benedict and Scholastica visited each other once a year in a farmhouse near their respective communities, since Benedictine rule forbade women inside the monsatery. They would spend the day taking and praying together. Near the end of one of those visits, Scholastica, sensing that she was close to death and asked her brother not to leave, but to stay with her until the next day.

Benedict refused her request. The Rule of Benedict prohibited him from spending a night away from the monastery. Not being able to persuade her brother to break his rule, Scholastica turned to God, praying that He let her brother remain. According to the story, her prayer was answered when God sent a severe enough thunderstorm to prevent Benedict from returning to his monastery. Her response when Benedict asked what she has done was simple: You wouldn’t grant my favor, but God did.

Scholastica and Benedict spent the night together in continued prayer and discussion. Three days later, Scholatica died.

Sure, there was good reason for the rule. But we need to recognize that our human rules are not inviolable and there are times when breaking them serves a greater good than adhering to them. God apparently thinks so too.

God Can’t Be Contained

In today’s first Mass reading, from the first Book of Kings, Solomon exclaims, “Can it indeed be that God dwells on earth? If the heavens and the highest heavens cannot contain you, how much less this temple which I have built!”

The truth, of course, is that God cannot be contained. We recognize the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, but that doesn’t mean Christ is not everywhere present. We go to Church to communally worship in the presence of God, but that doesn’t mean God is not present outside of the church building.

All that exists, in every moment, is sustained by being held in God’s embrace; God is present everywhere, something Gerard Manley Hopkins expressed so beautifully in his poem, God’s Grandeur, where he talks of the world being “charged with the grandeur of God.”

That doesn’t mean that Solomon’s temple was not a sacred place, that there was not value in his building a temple to God. In talking about this issue in his book, The Mystery of Faith, Michael Himes writes,

If everything is engraced, then somewhere, sometime that grace must be expressed. To give an example: if God is everywhere, how can we speak of certain places as sacred? Whatever we mean when we call a church or a chapel a sacred space, we certainly cannot mean that God is present there but not present in the parking lot next door or at the supermarket or in the bank. If God is present everywhere, what makes the church or a chapel a special, sacred place? The answer is not that God is present there and absent elsewhere, but that, since God is present everywhere, you and I need to notice, accept and celebrate that presence somewhere. So the community sets apart a particular place and calls it sacred.

So, as did Solomon, we call our churches, our chapels, our temples sacred. But, like Solomon, we need to always remember that doing so does not confine God to those places. God cannot be contained.

A Place at the Table

For some people, religion is a means of dividing people. The sinners from the saints. The worthy from the unworthy. The chosen from the unchosen.

But that was never Christ’s way. Christ inivited everyone – the poor as well as the rich, women as well as men, the young as well as the old, and those the world labeled sinners as well as those labeled good and rightous people. For Christ there was a place at the table for everyone.

That is a vision that requires something on our part. It requires not only that we extend Christ’s invitation to everyone, but that we help promote structures that allow everyone to take a place at Christ’s table.

There is a song our teen choir sings at Sunday evening Masses sometimes that speaks of Christ’s vision. The verses of the song paint a picture of “a new way to live,” proclaiming:

For everyone born, a place at the table
For everyone born, clean water and bread,
A shelter, a space, a save place for growing,
For everyone born, a star overhead.

For woman and man, a place at the table
Revising the roles, deciding the share,
With wiseom and grace, dividing the power,
For woman and man, a system that’s fair.

For young and for old, a placed at the table
A voice to be heard, a part in the song,
The hands of a child in hands that are wrinkled,
For young and for old, the right to belong.

For just and unjust, a place at the table,
Abuser, abused, with needs to forgive,
In anger, in hurt, a mindset of mercy,
For just and unjust, a new way to live.

The refrain reminds us that we have role in making this new way a reality, telling us that “God will delight when we are creators of justice….justice and joy.”

There’s Always a Story

The Naked City, a TV series that ran from 1958 to 1963, ended each episode with the line, “There are eight million stories in the Naked City; this has been one of them.” The truth is, everyone has a story, but we don’t always know what it is.

Someone cuts us off in traffic. Jerk, we think, without knowing whether he had reason to be in a rush. Someone we know walks past us without saying hello. How rude, we think, without knowing what was on her mind.

Taped to the wall of my office is a prayer someone sent me once. I don’t remember who sent it or where the person found it, but I try to read it once in a while, to remember that there is always a story, even when I don’t know what it is. I hadn’t read it in a while and was reminded of it when I read the Of Many Things column in a recent America magazine, which talked about how understanding others helps us deal with small annoyances. The prayer reads:

Heavenly Father, Help us remember that the jerk who cut us off in traffic last night is a single mother who worked nine hours that day and is rushing home to cook dinner, help with homework, do the laundry and spend a few precious moments with her children.

Help us to remember that the pierced, tattooed, disinterested young man who can’t make change correctly is a worried 19-year-old college student, balancing his apprehension over final exams with his fear of not getting his student loans for next semester.

Remind us, Lord, that the scary looking bum, begging for money in the same spot every day (who really ought to get a job!) is a slave to addictions that we can only imagine in our worst nightmares.

Help us to remember that the old couple walking annoyingly slow through the store aisles and blocking our shopping progress are savoring this moment, knowing that, based on the biopsy report she got back last week, this will be the last year that they go shopping together.

At the same time that we pray to remember the stories of others, we might also pray that others will take a moment to consider our story at those moments when we are rushed and irritating to them. We, too, have our stories.

Complicity by Inaction

I mentioned that I am reading James Carroll’s Practicing Catholic, which I am enjoying tremendously.

In talking about the clergy sex abuse scandal, Carroll suggests that there is plenty of blame to be spread around, including among ordinary Catholics. In his view, “each Catholic had reason to feel implicated.” I share the following paragraph fully recognizing that many people will have different views about some of the examples Carroll uses, because I think his underlying point is a valid and important one.

When Catholics cooperated in the climate of dishonesty that polluted the Church’s teachings about sex – not making an issue, for example, of the absurd birth control prohibition – we were shoring up the dishonest atmosphere in which abusive priests thrived. When we declined to hold bishops accountable for their excessively autocratic exercise of authority in small matters (forbidding girls from serving at Mass with altar boys) and large (closing parish schools without consultation), we supported the power system that bishops were protecting in protecting abusers. When we failed to make an issue of the unjust discrimination against women embodied in the male-only priesthood, we were part of what allowed patriarchal clericalism to reach a state of calcified corruption. When we passively accepted the hierarchy’s refusal to implement Vatican II reforms aimed at empowering the laity, we gave the abusive priests a place to hide and their sponsoring bishops a way to keep them hidden.

As I said, we may or may not agree with some of Carroll’s examples. But we all need to ask ourselves, in what way were we complicit by our silent acceptance of the status quo? Carroll is not (nor am I) minimizing the guilt of the individual offenders. But he is suggesting that we accepted a system that enabled the crisis to occur, and it is worth reflecting on the extent to which that charge may be true.

It seems to me that this is something worth thinking about, not only with respect to this issue, but with others as well. To what extent, by my inaction, do I allow unjust structures to continue to exist and to oppress my brothers and sisters?

The Beheading of John the Baptist

Today’s Gospel from St. Mark is one that I have prayed with often – the death of John the Baptist at the hands of King Herod. Pleased by a dance performed for him and his guests by the daughter of Herodias, Herod promises the girl to grant to her whatever she wishes, swearing that anything she asks will be granted. Consulting her mother, the girl asks for “the head of John the Baptist.” Unwilling to reneg on his promise and look bad in front of his friends (and the girl), Herod “promptly dispatched an executioner with orders to bring back [John's] head,” which the executioner does.

One of the contemplations that is part of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius is the Two Standards, in which we contemplate the standard of Christ and that of Satan. When I visualize the standard of Satan, and how we are tempted into sin, the scene from today’s Gospel is one that easily comes to mind.

What is so powerful for me about the passage is that it is clear that Herod knows full well that what he is doing is wrong. Herod knew John was a righteous and holy man and, although he was “perplexed” by John, “he liked to listn to him.” When the daughter of Herodius asks for John’s head, Herod was “deeply distressed.” Nonetheless, the power of the evil spirit was strong enough to cause Herod to kill John.

This is a good story to keep in mind. It reminds us that the power of evil is real and is strong. We need God’s grace to make good choices when confronted with the temptation to sin. Few of our temptations are to a sin as horrible as the one committed by Herod, yet we all face temptations to, in Paul’s words in Romans, “do not do what I want, but…what I hate.” Let us pray for the grace to walk always under the standard of Christ.

Do It Afraid

In Psalm 23 we recite, “I will fear no evil.” The risen Christ twice told his disciples, “Be not afraid.”

No matter how steadfast our faith, how strong our prayer life, there are occasions when fear will rise in us. We can’t stop ourselves from feeling fear, any more than we can stop ourselves from experiencing any other feelings. Feelings rise and vanish without our control. Thus, the line in Psalms 23 about not fearing evil can not mean one literally that one will never have any fear, nor is Christ’s instruction to his disciples intended to suggest that they will have failed in his command if they ever experience any fear.

Fear will arise. What matters is how we respond when it does. What St. Ignatius calls the evil spirit loves when fear arises because fear can be used to stop us from acting and to stop us from making progress. When fear takes over, we are hesitant, we pull back, we fail to act.

I think what Jesus was really telling his disciples is: don’t let your feeling of fear stop you. Know that I am with you and can help you through despite your feeling of fear. Don’t let your fear keep you from following me.

In a book I’m currently reading, the author uses the expression “Do it afraid,” which she defines as “feel[ing] the fear and do[ing] what you believe you should do anyway.” It is a great expression of what Jesus asks of us. And so when we pray, “I will fear no evil,” what we want to be saying is, “Let fear not stop me. Help me do it afraid.”

St. Blaise

I’ve only actually known one Blaise in my life, my Uncle Blaise, who I loved dearly and who died twelve years ago of pancreatic cancer (the same disease the killed my father and that my aunt now suffers from). However, there is one other Blaise I remember from my youth, and that is St. Blaise, whose memorial the Catholic Church celebrates today.

We never actually learned anything about the life of St. Blaise. (Indeed, as I understand, no one knows a whole lot about his life.) However, each year on this day on which we remember him, a priest showed up in our Catholic grade school classroom with a pair of crossed candles. One by one, we filed up to the front of the room so the priest could press the candles against our throats to bless them and keep us from illness.

The source of this invocation of St. Blaise to prevent and heal illnesses of the throat comes from a legend of a boy who had a fishbone stuck in his throat. According to the legend, the boy was brought to St. Blaise, who healed the boy as he was about to die.

I never know what to think of these legends. Was there actually a St. Blaise? Did he really heal a boy who was going to choke from a fishbone? If so, does that mean St. Blaise’s powers only extend to preventing choking from foreign objects or does it extend to other illnesses of the throat?

I don’t know the answers to any of these questions. But what I do know is this: My daughter is a singer and I am always concerned about her getting a sore throat, especially during this cold time of year. And legend or no, I find myself praying to St. Blaise to keep her from illnesses of the throat.

And so, in the words of a common prayer: Saint Blaise, pray for us that we may not suffer from illnesses of the throat and pray that all who are suffering be healed by God’s love. Amen.

My Eyes Have Seen Your Salvation

Today is the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, when the Catholic Church recalls the day on which Mary and Joseph brought the infant Jesus, to the temple “to present him to the Lord,” in accordance with the scripture that “Every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord.”

The Gospel reading for today’s Mass contains Luke’s account of the event. We are told that when Mary and Joseph arrive at the temple with Jesus, they are met by Simeon, a “righteous and devout” man, to whom it had been revealed “by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Christ of the Lord.”

When Simeon sees Jesus, he takes the child in his arms and prays, “Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation.”

I almost tingle every time I hear this scripture proclaimed. I can feel the joy and the peace Simeon felt when he beheld Jesus. The sense that everything else is now bearable because of the presence of the Lord. That nothing else is necessary for life to be complete.

Simeon waited his entire life to see Jesus. But what Simeon experiences, the joy and peace that come with recognition of the presence of God, is not unique to him. Jesus is ours to behold each day of our lives. In the Eucharist and in each other.

Unlike Simeon, who waited for years to behold Jesus, for us each day is the Presentation of the Lord. The salvation Simeon beheld is always right there before our eyes.

Choosing Among Goods

I don’t mean by the title, choosing which product to buy (although when I first moved back to the US after two years of living in Nepal, India and Thailand, I found that to be no easy task). Rather, I’m talking about making choices for where we devote our energy, choosing among options that are good.

If we are on a spiritual path, our choice for where to devote our energies is generally not between a good and a bad choice. If we are praying people, we are not sitting contemplating, “Hmm. Rob a bank or spend time visiting a sick relative.”

Choosing among goods is not always easy since each choice seems worthwhile and good. One danger is that we simply don’t choose, thinking we can do everything. We fail to realize that we have a limited amount of time and of energy and so we simply can’t do it all. We fall into the trap of thinking we have to try to do everything we have the capacity to do if it is a good thing. The problem with that approach is one many of us are familiar with – emotional drain and frustration.

The other problem, and one that arises when we are discerning about major options for how to devote our energies is that we agonize over our decisions. The reality is that few choices among good options are matters of life and death and neither choice would be a bad choice. Yet we can make ourselves crazy in the discernment process.

Both of these situations require some faith and trust in God. Trust that if I invite God into my discernment process, clarity about how I should use my energies will arise. It requires remembering that God is the driver not me, that this is God’s plan I’m fulfilling, not my own. And that if I keep a prayerful stance, to use Julian’s words, “All will be well.”